


A Dog So Small

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 22:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10173350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: Merlin and Arthur try to cope after a miscarriage.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The theme of this story will be triggering for some so please read the tags carefully before proceeding.

_“He saw clearly that you couldn't have impossible things, however much you wanted them. He saw that if you didn't have the possible things, then you had nothing.”_

_~_ A Dog So Small, Philippa Pearce

 

Arthur tells Merlin he’s expecting in bed one night and Merlin’s so happy he can barely breathe. They’ve wanted a child for so long and it almost seems too good to be true.

They don’t tell anyone until past the twelve week mark. Arthur’s superstitious and Merlin agrees, thinking how awful it would be if something went wrong. But after three months, he worries less. His mother’s so excited and even Uther goes a little pink on hearing the news. Their friends are thrilled, but no one could be as thrilled as they are. Every morning Merlin wakes up to a shiver of pure excitement, because every day brings them closer to meeting their child.

They discuss it constantly; they can’t seem to stop themselves. From little things, like what colour to paint the nursery, to bigger things, like which school to choose.

Or the biggest thing, picking a name.

"What about Anna for a girl?" Arthur says.

"Yeah, I like Anna."

"Anna Pendragon-Emrys has a nice ring to it."

"Excuse me? I think you mean Anna Emrys-Pendragon."

Arthur scoffs.

"It obviously sounds better my way, Merlin."

"Rubbish! You just think people will shorten it to Pendragon."

Arthur heaves a sigh.

"I can't help it if I come from a very recognisable and influential family..."

"Yeah, 'cause it's so important to babies that they're recognisable and influential-"

"Is it such a crime that I want our child to have every advantage from day one?"

"Also, Anna Pendragon-Emrys spells the acronym 'ape'," Merlin points out and Arthur falls silent.

"How about Clementine?" he says at last.

"No! If we're saddling the poor bairn with a double barrelled last name, it's having a simple first one. Something like Emma, or John, or-"

"Snore."

"As the only person in this room named _Merlin,_ I can tell you that life is hard for kids with weird names."

"Yes but you had a weird personality to go along with it, dear, that didn't help."

A brief but furious tickle fight ensues, with Arthur forced to concede when Merlin mercilessly goes for his weak knees.

"Fine, fine! A normal first name. As long as their last name is Pendragon-Emrys.”

“Nah.”

“I’ll just write it down when I sign them up for school.”

Merlin grins, locating his ace card.

"The teachers will call them whatever I call them because I'll be the one picking them up from school every day," he says triumphantly.

"Not every day," Arthur says unexpectedly. "I could start leaving work early."

"You? Leave work early? And where are the other signs of the apocalypse?"

Arthur gives him a lazy swat on the arm.

"I would. I wouldn't wanna have a child and then just spend my life in the office. What's the point?"

Merlin's pretty sure an image of Uther has just flashed up in both of their heads but he doesn't say anything, just snuggles further into Arthur's chest.

"You'd really do that?"

"Of course. Hell, I'd quit my job if I had to. There's nothing more important to me than you and our baby."

Merlin had always known it, but hearing it out loud somehow means more to him than he could have imagined.

"Our baby," he says, slightly awed, and Arthur kisses the top of his head.

"Yes. Our little baby Pendragon-Emrys."

Merlin hits him with a pillow and Arthur laughs, a low warm rumble through his chest. Merlin peers down at his stomach, wondering if the baby can feel it, wondering if it knows how happy they are.

 

***

 

They’re having a boy. They find out at the next scan and Merlin’s so giddy he can’t speak. It’s not that he wanted a boy over a girl, it’s not that he minded either way, but it all feels so real now. They’re having a little boy.

They bicker about names for a few more weeks until one night Arthur says Thomas and Merlin opens his mouth to argue on principle, then snaps it shut again.

“Thomas,” he says slowly. “Tom. I like that.”

On a whim the next day he goes out and buys a little door sign for the nursery: Thomas written on it in curly red letters. There’s a little blonde knight standing next to the T and a tiny green dragon peeping out from the s.

Arthur laughs when he sees it and then nods, in his usual definite way.

“That settles it. Tom it is.”

And he hangs the sign on the nursery door that night.

 

***

 

“Maybe he’ll be a doctor,” Arthur says into the dark.

“Gaius’d like that,” Merlin says, drawing a lazy pattern on Arthur’s stomach with his finger. They’re lying in bed, Arthur on his back, the only way he can be comfortable. He’s so big now.

“A GP, maybe,” Arthur says dreamily. “In a small town, where everyone knows him. Then he can diagnose all our aches and pains when we’re old.”

“As long as he’s not a lawyer, we don’t need another one of them,” Merlin says and is rewarded with a poke in the ribs.

“Better a lawyer than a feckless illustrator,” Arthur rejoinders and Merlin snickers.

“He’s not being an illustrator, I don’t need any competition.”

“What do you want him to be then?”

“Anything,” Merlin says, yawning contentedly. “Doctor, ballerina, bin man. As long as he’s happy.”

“Of course he’ll be happy,” Arthur says confidently. “We’ll make sure of it.”

And then Merlin must drift off because when he wakes again Arthur’s moaning in the bed next to him, hands gripping his stomach, saying “something’s wrong, Merlin, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.”

 

***

 

They keep Arthur in hospital for two days. They get a taxi home when he’s discharged; Merlin can’t trust himself to drive yet. He keeps thinking about the journey to the hospital and how long it took and if things might have been different had he got there sooner.

They don’t speak on the way home and Arthur goes straight to bed when they get back. Someone’s been in and changed the sheets, Gwen probably. The lamp by the door they knocked over in the rush to leave the house has been righted, the bulb replaced. It’s as though nothing happened at all.

Merlin can’t stand that, suddenly. He hits the lamp to the floor, steps on it for good measure. The paper shade tears down the middle, the metal frame twists. Merlin leaves it there and walks away.

But when he gets to the bedroom he finds the door’s been shut against him.

 

***

 

Arthur goes back to work a week later. It’s too soon but Merlin can’t stop him. He can only hope the distraction of the office might be a good thing.

Some days he longs for it himself, as he sits in the study at home and tries not to think about the empty room next door, the nursery that never got to be.

Uther calls two days after the funeral, his usual stiffness undercut with a layer of panic.

“Arthur is unwell,” he says. “I think you ought to come and pick him up.”

Merlin’s already on his feet, cradling the phone as he reaches for the car keys.

“Is he okay?” he says desperately and Uther makes a funny sound, almost like a sob.

“Please come soon,” he says and disconnects the call.

When Merlin gets to the firm, the door to Arthur’s office is shut and all the blinds are drawn. He steps inside and nearly trips over. The room looks like it’s been ransacked; papers strewn across the floor, desk tidy upturned, plant pot shattered.

Arthur’s sat on the little couch, head in his hands, knuckles bruised. Gwen’s sat beside him, stroking his back.

“Hey love,” Merlin says, coming forward to kneel in front of him. “Shall I take you home?”

Arthur lifts his head, eyes red-rimmed. He doesn’t say anything but he lets Merlin lead him out and to the car.

He goes to bed when he gets home and ignores the tea and toast that Merlin brings him. When Merlin checks back in later, Arthur’s sat up against the headboard, staring at the wall.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

They haven’t yet, not really. Not even at the funeral, though that had only been a small affair. A tiny little grave in a quiet corner. An apple tree nearby. As though that mattered. As though a peaceful resting place could make up for the cruelty of nature.

They haven’t touched, either. Merlin misses Arthur, misses the way his skin feels under his hands, misses the warmth of his body and the feel of his breath.

He’s moving across the bed before he can stop himself, but he stops dead when Arthur flinches away.

“I just want to touch you,” Merlin says helplessly.

“No, you just want to fuck me,” Arthur says and he sounds bruised and furious and afraid.

Arthur never used to talk like that. He always said ‘making love’ and Merlin laughed at him for being old fashioned; for being shy and delicate when he expressed his desires.

He regrets that now, when he hears how harsh other words sound on Arthur’s tongue.

“I don’t,” Merlin pleads. “Just want to stroke your hair, or rub your feet, or… or… kiss you.”

Arthur doesn’t seem to be listening.

“You can’t ever fuck me again,” he says, more to the wall than Merlin. “They tore me apart down there.”

Then he begins to cry and Merlin’s fingers twitch with useless desire, to hold, to comfort, to heal.

“They took my baby,” Arthur sobs. “They cut me open and they took my baby.”

But when Merlin reaches for him, he turns away.

 

***

 

One day Merlin can’t stand it anymore and he calls Gwaine and Elyan, then drives out to the country for the day. When he gets back, the nursery is the spare room again; walls painted white, crib replaced with bed. Merlin runs his hand along the door where the little Thomas sign once hung, with its tiny dragon and tiny knight.

He takes the boxes that his friends have stacked neatly by the door and puts them in the attic. It’s up there that he stumbles on the bag of children’s books that Hunith gave him when she found out Arthur was expecting: Each Peach Pear Plum, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Peter Rabbit.

He delves to the bottom and finds his battered copy of A Dog So Small. It was Merlin’s favourite when he was little, a story about a boy who wants a dog so badly that he makes one up. When the real thing arrives, it’s not quite what he expected.

It’s not a baby book, it’s for older children. Hunith must have put it in there for later.

There is no later.

Tom will never get any older.

Merlin weeps.

 

***

 

Arthur doesn’t come home one night and Merlin drives around town looking for him, increasingly frantic as he checks the parks and bars and bridges.

But when he calls the house phone Arthur picks up and Merlin drives straight home, relieved and sick and livid all at once.

He finds Arthur in the bedroom. He’s propped up against the wall, legs sprawled out, bottle of vodka clutched loosely in one hand.

“I didn’t know where you were,” Merlin says quietly.

“Well, you found me,” Arthur sings out, a horrible pantomime grin stretching his face. He takes a gulp from the bottle and Merlin feels the burn in his own throat.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” he says.

“Why? Drink what I like,” Arthur slurs, and then he rubs his hand roughly across his stomach. “Nothing in there now, is there?”

Suddenly Merlin’s tired. He can’t do this again. He can’t rip all the agony and hurt from inside himself and bring it to the light once more. It’s too painful. It feels like he’s being flayed alive every day, and he’s reached the point where he wonders if he should just go. If there’s anything left between him and Arthur anymore other than bitterness and anger and utter despair.

He opens his mouth to say all this, and then he notices that Arthur’s still rubbing his hand across his stomach. But not roughly like before. Softly, like an apology. Like a longing. Like he’s remembering the solid weight of something that was a part of him, if only for a short time. 

There’s nothing there now. There’s an empty space where their happy ending should have been. There's nothing they can do to make it right again.

Merlin sits down next to his husband. He puts his hand over Arthur’s, clasps it on his stomach. Waits for Arthur to push him away again.

There’s a pause and then Arthur curls himself into Merlin’s body; buries his face in Merlin’s neck and breathes there for a moment.

“Baby died,” Arthur whispers, and he sounds so young. “Our baby died, Merlin.”

“Yes, love,” Merlin says, and lets the tears come. “Our baby died. And we miss him very much.”

Then he puts his arms around Arthur and holds him tight.

 

***

 

They take Lucy to visit Tom’s grave on what would have been his fourth birthday. Lucy’s wearing her new red wellingtons and a little red coat to match, with love-heart buttons. She has Owl with her, the stuffed bird Gwen made her for Christmas. She sleeps with it every night and takes it along wherever she goes.

Sometimes Merlin thinks about the child Tom would be today. He’d be starting school in a few weeks. He’d be one of the youngest in his class. They’d dress him up on his first day and take a picture outside their house. They’d stick it on their wall and they’d send it to their friends. “Look at our Tom,” they’d say proudly. “Look at how much he’s grown.”

Tom’s grave is small and white and there’s a pair of hands carved on the top. The inscription below reads ‘Till We Meet Again’.

Sometimes Arthur stares a little too long at small boys in the supermarket, clinging to their father’s hand as they pass by.

Lucy traces Tom’s name with one chubby finger. She’s only been walking a few weeks and she’s still unsteady on her feet. She grows out of shoes so fast that they can hardly believe it.

Sometimes Merlin is angry, still.

Lucy pats the grave with the flat of her hand.

“This is your older brother,” Arthur says, crouching down beside her. “Tom.”

“Tuh-om,” Lucy says, trying it out. “Tuh-om.”

She smiles up at her daddies, waiting for the praise that accompanies her learning a new word.

Merlin kisses the top of her head.

“That’s right, sweetheart. Tom.”

Lucy’s too young to ask any further questions. They’ll tell her when she’s older, they both agreed to keep no secrets from her.

Merlin asks her to arrange the flowers they brought in a little jam jar by the grave. She takes to the task with great concentration, tongue sticking out as she mixes daisies with daffodils, pansies with marigolds.

Merlin and Arthur stand and watch her, hand in hand. Arthur rests his head on Merlin’s shoulder, his breathing deep and slow.

She steps back when she’s finished, and nearly overbalances. Arthur’s there to catch her, swooping her up into his arms.

“Say goodbye to Tom,” he says and she waves her little hand.

Merlin repositions the jam jar, then strokes the side of the grave.

“See you soon, baby,” he says, as he always does.

The sun is setting as they walk back to the car. Lucy’s fallen asleep on Arthur’s shoulder, the last rays of light turning her hair golden.

They pause at the top of the hill and look back at the cemetery, at the trees just beginning to shed their summer leaves. Merlin takes Arthur’s hand but they don’t say anything; content just to look and think and remember.

And then Lucy wakes up and they swing her between them, just to see her laugh. Then they start the car and head for home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading


End file.
